The Quest for Authentic Place: The Production of Suburban Alternatives in Minnesota's St. Croix Valley

Abstract

The smart growth movement advocates compact, neotraditional neighborhoods and conservation subdivisions as alternatives to conventional suburban and exurban development patterns. Drawing on three case studies and a control neighborhood from the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, this study attempts to identify the actors, conflicts, and underlying motivations behind the production of alternative suburban landscapes. The case studies highlight the importance of landscape politics as played out in local planning commissions, smallervolume developers carving out a community and/or environment niche to compete with larger national developers, and homebuyers willing to cross greater social and geographic distances in their quest for places that embody a normative vision of a better place to live. We suggest that these alternative landscapes be viewed as ambivalent—as supporting progressive social and environmental ideals while at the same time enhancing local environmental quality at the expense of the broader environment. Thus they are in essential continuity with the suburban project and represent its increased sophistication rather than its rejection.

Keywords:

• smart growth
• New Urbanism
• traditional neighborhood design
• conservation subdivisions
• Minneapolis-St. Paul